“I often lie. But not about this. I’ll cooperate.”
Cregan smiled, pleased to have humiliated me. He replaced his knife in the sheath at his waist, then yanked me up by my collar and tossed me into the corner of the wagon. “We’ll see.”
A minute later, Conner returned to the wagon with Mott and a boy walking beside him. I squinted, certain I recognized him. He was tall and unusually thin. His hair was darker than both mine and Roden’s, but his was stringy and straight and more in need of a trim than mine, if that was possible.
The boy climbed dutifully into the back of the wagon. Conner glanced at my untied hands and then at the thin vein of blood trickling down my neck. He eyed Cregan. “Any trouble?”
“None, sir,” Cregan responded. “Only I believe you’ll find Sage to be more cooperative now.”
Conner smiled as if that was all he needed to know of the matter. “I’m glad to hear it. Boys, meet Tobias. He’ll be joining us in our quest.”
“What quest?” I asked.
Conner shook his head. “Patience, Sage. Patience is the mark of a ruler.”
And that was my first clue about why Conner had taken us. We were all in terrible danger.
I knew Tobias. He might not have known me because I’d come and gone from Gelvins Charity Orphanage so quickly. But in my short stay, Tobias had stood out amongst the others. He was no ordinary orphan. He’d been educated as a child and continued to read anything he could get his hands on. He was given special privileges at the orphanage because it was felt he was one of the few with any hopes of one day making a success of his life.
Tobias glanced my way. “You’re bleeding.”
I brushed at the cut mark on my neck. “It’s mostly stopped.”
That was as much concern as he wished to invest. “Do I know you?”
“I stayed here about six months ago.”
“Yeah, I remember. Locked the headmaster out of the orphanage for an entire night, didn’t you?”
The grin on my face became my confession. “You have to admit, we ate well that night. For once.”
“It’s not funny,” Tobias scolded. “Maybe we don’t eat well most of the time, but it’s because there’s not a lot of food to go around. You gave out a week’s worth of food that night. It was a very long, very hungry week after you left.”
My grin faded. I hadn’t known that.
We rode for over an hour through a lonely plain covered in gorse and nettle. Tobias remarked that he found it beautiful in a desolate sort of way. I saw the desolation, but the beauty escaped me. Eventually, it became dark enough that Mott suggested we find a place to stop for the night. The closest town was still Gelvins behind us rather than anything yet ahead, so I didn’t think it should matter too much where we camped. But Mott still took us a ways farther until the vegetation changed and he found a small clearing surrounded by tall willow trees and thick bushes.
“They’re hiding us,” I muttered to the other boys.
Roden shook his head back at me and said, “It’s safer here than out in the open. They’re protecting us.”
Mott jumped off the wagon and began shouting orders at each of us for what to unload from the wagon and where to put it, mostly blankets and, I hoped, food. I was assigned to remain in the wagon and hand things to the others on the ground.
“Afraid I’ll run away?” I asked.
“Any trust you get here will have to be earned,” Mott said. “And I’d say you have a great deal more to earn than the others.” He nodded at a sack near my foot. “Hand me that.”
Although Conner was the master of our group, Mott was clearly the one keeping our show running. He was no ordinary, useless vigil. At least, I noticed that he didn’t need to ask Conner’s permission for everything, and when Mott issued orders to Cregan, Cregan did as he was told. While we worked, Conner stationed himself on a fallen log to peruse a tattered leather-bound book. Every now and then he’d glance up, studying each of us with more than a casual examination, then return to his book.
Cregan got a fire going, and afterward, Mott instructed us to gather around so that Conner could talk to us.
“Talk to us?” I said. “When do we eat?”
“We eat after the talk,” Conner said, closing his book and standing. “Come, boys, sit.”
I jumped out of the wagon and squeezed onto the edge of a log Roden and Tobias had dragged near the fire. They weren’t too pleased to have me there but didn’t complain either. Latamer squatted on the ground. I considered offering him my seat, since he was still coughing, but I guessed he wouldn’t take it anyway.
Conner coughed too, although his was the kind meant to get our attention. The cough wasn’t necessary. We were already watching him.